Realizations
by AimeLaire
Summary: NaruSaku/SasuSaku - Multi-chapter: 'Mistakes are made. Feelings are misunderstood. Hearts are broken. Nothing is instantaneous. Especially love.'


_Kso I don't want to give anything away – though it should be QUITE obvious if you know _anything about me, at all - sooo let's just start, n'est pas? ;3

(Before I start, I'm horribly sorry about the lack of legit ruler lines. :S Something is being screwy with my Opera browser... so I'll just substitute with dash's. One is just a break, two is a scene change and five is for general breaks. Thank you~)

Disclaimer: I do not own any aspect of 'Naruto'. Masashi Kishimoto does. :)

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** Realizations**

She lay on the bed alone, her body, garbed only in her underwear, strewn across the bed. She opened her eyes slowly to the see the sun rising over the horizon visible through the long windows overlooking all of Konoha. She was tired from last night, but couldn't fall asleep again so she lay there for a while, atop the comfortable feather duvet, merely running over everything that had transpired between them last night. It had been amazing, and had made her feel closer to him than she ever had. She felt connected with him, now. Like every thought, every emotion she would be able to feel along with him.

She was grateful that he had finally been able to get some time off from his missions. They had needed to spend some time together for a while now.

She rolled to her side, shielding her eyes from the bright sun rising steadily higher in the sky. Suddenly, she was rolled onto her back again by strong hands, which were now beside her head. Lean, hard muscles rubbed along her stomach as weathered lips caressed her neck before moving up to her lips.

Between his rough, needy kisses, he whispered her name, alluringly, eagerly; as she entangled her sea foam-green nailed fingers in his soft hair, pulling him ever closer to her.

Finally, he pulled away, dropping her unceremoniously onto the plush bed and climbed off the bed, righting his tie –which had _somehow_ come loose- and fixing his hair in the mirror across from the bed.

Smiling down at her, as she pouted, disappointed, up at him, he mussed her already bed-headed, pink hair, and walked towards the door without another word, before stopping, his hand frozen on the doorknob.

Taking it upon herself to have the last word, she uttered the words she always left him with, before he left her for the day.

"I love you," She smiled as he smirked back at her, still wordless, though he nodded in assent.

"Sasuke-kun."

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She pulled on her uniform, tiredly, yawning every few seconds. Since she had to be there around 9 and it was still 8, she moved slowly, making her breakfast then headed to the hospital.

Just another typical day in the life of Sakura Haruno; nothing different would happen today.

Every alternating week was spent going on missions to be the healer on her team, but this week would be spent in the hospital, where the most excitement they ever got was when nin came back from missions covered in life-threatening wounds, which didn't happen often. Needless to say, she much preferred the weeks spent on missions with her other jounin teammates, Ino, Hinata and TenTen.

Nothing was too exciting anymore. Not like it had been years ago.

But what could she do about that?

_ Nothing. _

Things weren't the same anymore, and she has come to terms with that a long time ago.

And so, she went about her day as she always did.

Standing on a moss-covered branch, Naruto crouched down, his gloved hand holding onto the branch to steady himself, the sun rising above the tree level. They weren't far behind him and his two other masked comrades, so all three readied themselves for the ambush. He held his breath, awaiting the first signs of their target's oncoming encroachment.

It was a lowly A-ranked mission, but at the moment, there weren't any higher S-ranked ones he could've taken, so halfheartedly he had agreed to take this one.

Finally the squad they had been hired to subdue entered the clearing. But as they entered into his sight, he noticed that instead of the 4 ninja's as before, there were now only 2 of them. Unless the two missing nins had inexplicably died off, that _definitely_ wasn't right.

Radioing into his teammates over their comms, he began to talk into the mic when suddenly he heard two screams. Jumping into the clearing, he quickly ran to where both were positioned, only to find them gone. Calmly, he closed his eyes and waited for the signal he had told the two about if just such a situation arose, and here it was.

When the signal arrived, he sprung into action, allowing his body to move uninhibited through the clearing, to where the two missing nin's were holding his teammates captive. Killing the two ninja's in a flash, their bodies hit the ground loudly, in the silent clearing. His teammates, released from their holds, fell, unconscious, to the ground as well.

"They left the best part for me." Laughing to himself, humourlessly, he began to move swiftly to the two fast-retreating figures. "Wimps." He finished, reproachfully, shaking his head. Why couldn't he have teammates who were at his level? It was an annoyance having to watch over them every mission. Like he was _babysitting_. He deserved worthy teammates. When he got back to Konoha, he was demanding better ones.

With that, he left the two on the forest floor, to take out the last two easily.

-

Wiping the blood off of his katana, he sheathed it and began to make his way slowly back to Konoha.

Somehow, something he had said or done today… had reminded him of Sasuke, back in their team 7 days. In a moment of revelation, he noticed that his attitude mirrored how Sasuke had been. Taciturn, cold, stoic… cynical… all of the attributes he had hated about Sasuke back then.

But Sasuke was a person of his past now. There was no going back. Those memories held only pain and regret. Those days were gone.

The Naruto of the past was gone, now, too. No more did a happy grin adorn his face, but rather an expression of boredom – the only thing he could rely on to hide his seething inner emotions.

They were unbearable, yet he lived every day, on, without _her_… without… air. Simply thinking about _her_, about what they could've had… made it harder to breathe. He hadn't noticed it, but she had changed him, and now that she was gone, he was left with an unfillable hole.

His life was no longer one concerned with fulfilling his life long dream, but, rather, one of making it to the next day.

For without Sakura… he was a changed man. Empty. Without hope, meaning. He simply lived… for the sake of living.

A horrible way of living, but at least he was still alive. That much could be said.

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Ok, so that was the first chapter. Future chapters will be longer than this and I promise to release them every couple of weeks. I swear. Unless something school/life related comes up. I actually have the entire fan fiction drawn out and know mostly EVERYTHING that's going to happen, but it's better to release it slowly.

So this was just a taste, really. ;)

Enjoy waiting~ but I do promise to make it worthwhile.

In fact, I hope to make this an extremely well-written fanfic for the NaruSaku fandom, as we _certainly_ do not have enough of these. Sure, we're relatively new in terms of actual popularity, but we need to show the other pairing fandoms what we're made of~ :D

HELL YESSS.

Which I'm going to attempt to do.

Please support me!

R&R, please? If you write, then you'll know how meaningful it is just to get a review that simply gives praise. If you don't write, you'll just have to trust me that every single review given is like personally highfiving the writer. So highfive me? :O

Thank you for reading, anyways, beloved reader. ;)


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